This morning, Jil Sander announced that its longtime creative director, Belgian designer Raf Simons, will leave his post, effective February 27th. (He will show his Fall ‘12 Jil Sander collection in Milan on Saturday the 25th.) The announcement comes after several months of speculation that the designer was being courted for other positions: First at [...]

During her three decades in the business, photographer Roxanne Lowit (who is largely credited with pioneering backstage photography) captured rare moments with icons like Yves Saint Laurent, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, and Salvador Dalí. She’s also the shutterbug behind Backstage Dior, the 2009 tome that gave an inside glimpse at John Galliano’s ready-to-wear and Couture [...]

Coco Chanel launched her house’s fine jewelry collection in 1932, holding an exposition de bijoux de diamants for two weeks in November on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. (The diamond Franges necklace above was in the original collection.) “Reason prompted me, initially, to create faux jewelry because I find it free of arrogance in an era of [...]

When we set out to tell the story of 2011 by the numbers, one loomed especially large: 661,509, the record-breaking number of visitors who lined up, often for hours at a time, to see the Costume Institute’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (left) at the Met.But it wasn’t just a banner year for the Met and [...]

It might be too late to order that YSL gold-plated ring on Net-a-Porter that your sister really wanted for Christmas, or that leopard-print 3.1 Phillip Lim iPad case you meant to get your mom, but don’t give up hope of finding the perfect gift for your fashion-minded friends and family just yet. Throughout the year, [...]

The rumor mill churns again. With Marc Jacobs thought to be out of the running for the creative director position at Dior, some industry insiders are now speculating that Jil Sander creative director Raf Simons is Bernard Arnault’s latest target to take over the historic label.Simons began his career as a menswear designer, founding his [...]

“I wanted to share my collection with others so they could get a glimpse of the joys, the thrills, and the pure happiness that these beautiful creations have given me,” Elizabeth Taylor once said. It’s a line that now covers one of the purple walls at Christie’s New York, where the Hollywood legend’s jewels, clothes, [...]

Fashion houses, including Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Givenchy, and Christian Dior, all pitched in to create designer dolls for UNICEF, with proceeds going to help vaccinate children in Darfur. Les Frimousses, as they are called, will be on auction at Paris’ Drouot Montaigne on December 13. [WWD]Marc Jacobs is hosting a Halloween Beaux Arts Ball [...]

This is our type of game: Dior pinball with pearls. In Arcade Couture: Mise en Dior, a video debuting on Nowness today, the game has been reimagined with a focus on the brand’s signature Mise en Dior necklace, “to show, in a light and fun way, the richness and savoir faire of Dior,” says Dior [...]

Carine Roitfeld has confirmed she is set to make her return to the magazine world. The former Vogue Paris editor will launch a magazine next September in the U.K. [Telegraph]Someone other than Lady Gaga is trying to stake a claim to the Gaga name? It appears so. The marketing firm Excite Worldwide LCC has applied [...]